Planet of the Apes needed a prequel as much as Star Wars needed The Phantom Menace. Franklin J. Schaffner’s 1968 classic about an American astronaut who crash-lands in a futuristic world run by intelligent apes should have been both the beginning and the end, though that didn’t stop four sequels and Tim Burton’s underrated remake.

That said, at least the franchise’s latest installment is entertaining, rising above most of this summer’s squalid blockbuster fare. Andy Serkis (he who brought Gollum and King Kong to life) once again dons his motion-capture gear to star as Caesar, a genetically enhanced ape born out of a laboratory and raised secretly as a child on a leash by scientist Will Rodman (James Franco). It doesn’t take long for Caesar to have a few brushes against human society, resulting with his imprisonment in an ape sanctuary where he goes all William Wallace and leads a revolt.

Some might question what exactly is the bottom line to the new Planet of the Apes movie. It’s not like the prequel expands on the original’s allegory for Cold War nuclear anxieties and systematic racism. What more can Rise offer than some clichéd warnings about greedy pharmaceuticals, genetic engineering and maybe even bad parenting? The bottom line is dollars and cents in this prequel that serves little other purpose. Call it a stimulus package for the Apes franchise, since Rise will not only rake in its own currency but also motivate young audiences to discover the originals at home.

What’s remarkable about Rise is how despite being anchored to a franchise, it stands alone as its own movie, resembling any other apocalyptic tale or Frankenstein knockoff more than the other Planet of the Apes installments. If you blink, you’ll miss the subtle references to the original: a chimp playing with a Statue of Liberty toy; a televised announcement of a space shuttle called Icarus flying to Mars, which is no doubt occupied by Charlton Heston; and a risible quote uttered by Tom Felton (Harry Potter’s Draco Malfoy). That’s about it as Rise keeps more focus on the relationship between Caesar and his human companion, Will, instead of setting up the later installments.

The filmmakers devote a surprising amount of time to developing Caesar as a character, and it pays off. With an emotional performance from Andy Serkis, Caesar becomes a flesh-and-blood role despite being coded on a laptop. He certainly comes off as more human than Franco or Freida Pinto (as Will’s girlfriend) do here.

See if you don’t get sentimental when the chimp draws himself a makeshift window to gaze out from his ape prison cell. By the time Caesar goes from cute household pet to hard-boiled, calculating badass, you can’t help but root for his revolution.

Of course, when we get to that revolution, the movie begins to fall apart. It seems Rise would have fared better as an action-less thriller. Director Rupert Wyatt wisely keeps the scenes busy and the momentum building so that you would barely notice all the logistical nonsense on-screen. With an army of chimps bounding over cars and chucking spears, why should anyone stop and wonder why San Francisco is housing so many digitized apes? But, hell, it’s a summer movie, and it’s the action that audiences pay for.

At least this Apes installment, like Caesar, has some intelligence to spare, even if it feels completely engineered.